Recently, I had the privilege of designing a new company logo for Alan Farley and son's Old Confederate Workshop. Chaplain Farley is the founder/director of RMJC (Re-enactor's Missions for Jesus Christ), as well as an extremely gifted woodworker. God has certainly blessed the Farley family with a talent for creating authentic “Fine handcrafted, hardwood furniture for discriminating tastes...and Yankees too!” From beautiful flag display cases, to washstand tables and candle lanterns, Old Confederate Workshop offers the highest quality pieces, custom-made in a variety of woods. Alan mentioned an affinity for Norm Abram's show and the New Yankee Workshop logo. Their company is, of course, a Southern "take-off" on the concept and the goal was to create something similar, but also very different. The NYW logo features a rounded, tavern-sign with a graphic of Norm planing wood. My marching orders were to "use that God given talent to come up with something really unusual." The challenge was to come up with something that would work well for different media applications such as their website and business cards. I also wanted to design a logo that looked as if it was advertising in an 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly. The solution was to emulate an old-time engraver's plate for that colonial "printing-press" look. I decided to combine an old 1862 newspaper image of the Confederate flag with a woodworker pic taken from a 19th-Century tool catalog. I created the logo in Adobe Photoshop and used various tools and filters to scuff and scratch the image, apply a cross-hatching effect, and add ink smears. Finally, I added a sepia-tone effect for the Final Logo which is now posted on their Old Confederate Workshop website. The end result is a modern logo that looks as if it was created in the 1800's - just like the Farley's furniture.